It consists of a ring of standing stones, with each standing stone around 13 ft (4.1 metres) high, 6 ft 11 in (2.1 metres) wide and weighing around 25 tons. Located in southern England, it is comprised of roughly 100 massive upright stones placed in a circular layout. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.While many believed Monmouth’s account to be the true story of Stonehenge’s creation for centuries, the monument’s construction predates Merlin—or, at least, the real-life figures who are said to have inspired him—by several thousand years. Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury.It consists of a ring of standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons.The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
While historians agree that it was a place of great importance for over 1,000 years, we may never know what drew early Britons to Salisbury Plain and inspired them to continue developing it. Archaeologists believe England most iconic prehistoric ruin was built in several stages, with the earliest constructed 5,000 or more years ago. Perhaps you are paying it a visit with the kids, or learning about prehistoric monuments. Its construction is all the more baffling because, while the sandstone slabs of its outer ring hail from local quarries, scientists have traced the bluestones that make up its inner ring all the way to the Preseli Hills in Wales, some 200 miles from where Stonehenge sits on Salisbury Plain. During the third phase of construction, which took place around 2000 B.C., sarsen sandstone slabs were arranged into an outer crescent or ring; some were assembled into the iconic three-pieced structures called trilithons that stand tall in the center of Stonehenge. The complete outer circle is about 100 feet across, and contained originally thirty upright stones, of which half were still in place in 1920. Test their comprehension in a non-threatening way by asking them to fill in the missing words in this Stonehenge Cloze.Here's a simple colouring page of Stonehenge, showing as closely as possible the positions of the stones. Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, 2 miles (3 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. Some have suggested that they were immigrants from the European continent, but many scientists think they were native Britons descended from the original builders.While many modern scholars now agree that Stonehenge was once a burial ground, they have yet to determine what other purposes it served and how a civilization without modern technology—or even the wheel—produced the mighty monument. The Stonehenge PowerPoint Diagrams is an outstanding template illustrating the historical architecture. Meanwhile, archaeological excavations and development of the surrounding area to facilitate tourism have turned up other significant sites nearby, including other henges.There is strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge was used as a burial site, at least for part of its long history, but most scholars believe it served other functions as well—either as a ceremonial site, a religious pilgrimage destination, a final resting place for royalty or a memorial erected to honor and perhaps spiritually connect with distant ancestors.Several hundred years later, it is thought, Stonehenge’s builders hoisted an estimated 80 non-indigenous bluestones, 43 of which remain today, into standing positions and placed them in either a horseshoe or circular formation. Many modern historians and archaeologists now agree that several distinct tribes of people contributed to Stonehenge, each undertaking a different phase of its construction. Some 50 sarsen stones are now visible on the site, which may once have contained many more. First, Neolithic Britons used primitive tools—possibly made from deer antlers—to dig a massive circular ditch and bank, or henge, on Salisbury Plain.